This, from Hillary Clinton, is a reminder why candidates with their backs against the wall are so dangerous - like Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush (in 1992) in the last weeks of their losing campaigns, Hillary has really hit her stride and found her voice as a candidate in a way that was never in evidence as long as she had some plausible case to be a frontrunner - but unlike those candidates, Hillary still has months to go before she can be formally pulled from the stage:

I know his supporters say, well they did like the last debate in Philadelphia, the questions were kind of mean and they were sort of tough, ...You know, I've got to say, tough questions in a debate is nothing like the tough decisions you've got to make in the White House. I think that this state deserves a debate. So here’s what I'm offering. How about this -- no moderators just the two of us on a stage for 90 minutes asking each other questions, talking about whatever's on our minds, just like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and I think, you know, we could even do it on the back of a flatbed truck, doesn’t even have to be in a fancy studio somewhere.

(H/T). Is this a sign of desperation? Sure, these kinds of challenges always are. But then, those of us on the Right never did figure out how to make the Clintons go away, no matter how much hot water they were in. Not only does Obama have to keep taking this, but he has now reached the point where he basically has to hide from debating her again for his own protection, stop doing press conferences, and generally go into a protracted defensive crouch, while McCain is doing blogger calls, touring traditional Democratic strongholds and generally having himself a good time.

And what does it say about Obama that he is refusing the invitation for a Lincoln-Douglas debate? His chief complaint about the debates have been "mean" questions, unfair moderators, and little about the "real" issues. Here is his chance for him to ask his own "mean" questions, not have to worry about an unfair moderator, and have direct control over the direction of the debate....and he declines. Truth is: Obama is terrified of actually having to think on his feet without a teleprompter, especially with someone as tenacious as HRC across the way from him.